Professor found shot dead in southern Iraq

Gunmen kidnapped and killed a university professor in southern Iraq and a physician in a central city in separate incidents, police said today.

Jumhour Karim Khammas, professor at Basra University, was kidnapped and his body was found today with three bullet wounds in the city, said police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zubaidi.

Khammas, a Sunni Muslim and a former member of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, was kidnapped yesterday, said Shaker al-Basri, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni group.

Khammas headed the Arabic language department at Basra University before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, but was demoted to professor shortly after.

Meanwhile, gunmen abducted Dr. Hussein Al-Shamari from his clinic in the central city of Samarra today, police Capt. Laith Mohammed said. His body was later found with several bullet wounds, he said.

Attacks against university professors were common after Saddam’s overthrow because many of them had close ties to his regime. But it was not clear if Khammas’ killing was linked to tensions between Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni communities. Basra is mostly Shiite.

Elsewhere, an explosion hit an Iraqi army convoy today in Fallujah, some 40 miles west of Baghdad, witnesses said. Fire was seen billowing from the area but it was not clear if there were any casualties.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, security forces have detained a dozen men allegedly linked to insurgents, including a former intelligence officer and several policemen.